Then We Shifted Gears
by kaleidoscopeXmonkey
Summary: When everything you know is torn away, how do you cope? Two hundred years in the future, she sits in a darkened bar, and ponders her life--a life the stranger to her left will soon play an important role in.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or any of the characters you recognize.

--

Alcohol is nice.

It's also the reason I'm in this mess in the first place. And yeah, I know it's not really his fault, but… well, since the universe seems to be playing a massive, horrible joke on me, I might as well blame someone. And he's convenient.

He's the one who convinced me I needed to come to this _really awesome party, no really, you'll love it_ and I ended up driving to some guy's apartment while he and my roommate followed behind.

And then there was a flash and a quake and… yeah. And now I'm here. And they're not. I don't know if they stopped after I went through… whatever it was, or if they ended up somewhere else, or if something entirely different happened to them, but they aren't here.

Downing drinks in a bar, some two hundred years in the future.

If it weren't for him, I'd be drinking in a club in the twenty-first century. I'd be with my friends, and we'd be happy. Or, at least, as happy as our dysfunction ever is.

I suppose they're dead now.

The thought isn't as horrifying as it should be.

It's probably the alcohol.

--

I'm not delusional, and I'm not hallucinating. I'm not dreaming, and I haven't gone crazy.

I know what all of that is like, and believe me, this is so far from mental breakdown… I don't even know. But it's real. This is my reality.

It hasn't sunk in yet.

--

I have money.

Well, sort of. It's kind of obsolete here, apparently, and something about betterment of humanity… but I had a lot of crap in my car.

They're considered artifacts now. From what I can gather, there was this nuclear war, and very little is left from before then. Which means empty rum bottles and various books and whatever else happened to be in my car… it's all worth a lot.

Most of it's in museums now. I kept the stuff I wanted, sold the really pointless crap, and told them under no circumstances was I leaving my car.

On the plus side, I have money.

And drinks are always free.

--

"You're here alone?"

He's cute, if a little blurry in the dark haze of the bar. He's also slightly drunk. And he's probably hitting on me.

If they were here, my roommate would kick his ass, and her boyfriend would haul me back to his car.

They're not here.

"Yeah."

"Name's Jim Kirk."

His eyes are really blue. Like _hers._ And he's smirking, not unlike _him._ And he's probably experienced.

"Susan," I tell him.

"I know. They let you out of your cage, then?"

I attempt to stare at him. It's not easy. He keeps moving.

"What are you talking about?"

"You've been all over the news. It's all anyone talks about. The little girl who punched through time in a _car._"

"Yeah. They let me out." I finish off my drink and wave the empty glass at the bartender.

"What's it like?"

I laugh. "Don't you think that's a bit… inappropriate? Invasive?"

"Not really."

"Right then." The bartender refills my glass. I take a long drink.

"So?"

"Loads of fun."

And it is. Today, I learned my brother ended up in jail on drug charges, and I can't help thinking it's my fault.

"Look, it's been fun, but I need to sober up before they start prodding me again tomorrow." I put down my glass.

"What, you're going to wander through an unfamiliar city, drunk, by yourself?"

"Was thinking more along the lines of passing out in a gutter."

He laughs. "Where are you staying?"

"No idea."

"Then… I don't know… you can stay with me. I'm not about to explain why I let Starfleet's prized guinea pig get herself attacked in the street. My roommate won't mind if you pass out on the floor." He pauses. "At least, I _think_ he won't mind."

--

For the record, his roommate _does _mind. A lot. And doesn't take too kindly to random time travelers passed out on his floor. Still, I guess it's better than a gutter. But only just.


	2. Chapter 2

When I wake up, he points out the building I was taken to when I first arrived, and says they'll remind me where I live. I nod, and I thank him, and I leave. His roommate pretends I'm not there.

--

I run into him again after that. Two days later, at the same bar. Apparently, it's a favorite of his.

He's up at the bar, talking with a group of cadets. His roommate sits next to him, downing drinks and poking holes in Jim's tales.

I sit at a back table and watch.

--

He does talk to me. That's the weird thing. His night proves to be unsuccessful, and his somewhat-more-sober roommate practically carries his ass out. Before that, though, he pauses at my table.

"In eight years, I'll have my own ship. I want you on it." His voice is surprisingly steady compared to his shitfaced expression and total lack of coordination.

"Doing what?"

He shrugs. "Doesn't matter."

"Okay."

They leave. I find a new bar. Another week passes. Eventually, I'm offered a job teaching history at the Academy, because, according to the Admiral with the weird hands, "you lived it".

Which, frankly, is bizarre. I think I have a clear understanding of the past five years, but before then, it's all a little fuzzy.

Still, it's something to do for the next eight years. Or, far more likely, the next sixty, seeing as I really doubt Jim will remember me or care in eight years, and there's no way he'd drag me on his ship to do nothing.

--

On my second day of teaching, my supervisor asks me to tell the class about what it was like growing up during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. That's when I realize I'm in a kind of alternate history.

It doesn't matter. A quick Google-equivalent later, and I'm up to speed enough to bullshit the rest.

--

I stay at the teaching post for a month. During that time, I learn three things: First, history professors, when given a living, breathing historical artifact, don't like it when said artifact tells them that most of their perceptions of the time period they specialize in are dead wrong. Second, kids in the twenty-third century are a thousand times smarter than kids in the twenty-first. And third, it's very easy to sneak onto a shuttle if you have a Starfleet cadet's uniform, but a lot harder to sneak onto a ship.


	3. Chapter 3

_Three Years Later…_

My shift ends, and I toss a towel to Del, my replacement.

"Do you mind taking my shift tomorrow?" she asks as I turn to leave.

"What's tomorrow?"

She grins. "The _Enterprise_ is docking for a while. I hear the new captain…"

The _Enterprise_. Of course. With the youngest Captain in Starfleet history at the helm—considered by nearly everyone to be a giant mistake, even if he did destroy the Romulan ship.

The flagship and her Captain.

And my chance.

"I'm really sorry, Del," I say, fishing around behind the counter for my bag. "I have plans tomorrow. You could try A'Ranik; he never does anything."

"No problem. And yeah, I'll call him after my shift."

--

It's not that I don't like the Earth Spacedock. I do. And I love my job, most of the time. Working at the bar, I've almost gotten used to being in the twenty-third century.

I'm just tired. I don't want to stay here. And really, if you had the galaxy at your fingertips, would you stay in one place?

--

It goes better than my last three attempts to get onto a ship, which is surprising. This is the flagship, and yet the security is worse than the little freighter I attempted to stow away on a year and a half ago.

This time, I have a Starfleet uniform. Red. Ensign. It makes me nearly invisible, and I walk around the decks for a while, acting like I'm going somewhere, until the ship goes into warp.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Part one of my plan worked.

Unfortunately, I suddenly realize, there's not much of a part two.

--

Part two is either "convince the Captain to let me hang out for a while" or "find another station or planet to beam down on (and then… figure out how to do that)".

It's not very absolute, and not very… well, realistic.

I'm starting to regret leaving the Earth Spacedock.

--

Turns out, I'm not that invisible.

Especially when the duty roster comes out, and I'm not on it. As much as I've avoided talking to anyone, well… avoiding a superior officer is apparently not on.

Also, the Brig is not very comfortable.


	4. Chapter 4

It takes two days for him to come see me. Granted, he _is_ the Captain of the ship, but you'd think the fact that someone found a stowaway would be pretty important.

He pulls up a chair and sits outside my cell. I flop down on my bench.

"Susan."

"Jim."

A long moment passes, where he attempts to stare me down, and I stare at a spot slightly to the left of his head.

"What are you doing?" he asks at last.

I shrug. "Got bored."

"So you thought you'd stow away on my ship?"

"You _did_ invite me. Said you wanted me on the ship."

"To do what, exactly?"

"You didn't know."

He shakes his head. "Bullshit."

"A couple days after I passed out on your floor. We were in a bar. That roommate of yours was hauling you out, and before you left, you said you wanted me on your ship."

"What?" He laughs, incredulous. "You remember that? Bones told me about it the next morning, said it'd come back to bite me in the ass… damn him…" He shakes his head. "Susan, I was drunk. I didn't mean it."

I give him a small smile. "Yeah," I say quietly. "I kind of figured. Thought I should give it a try, anyway. So what'll happen to me?"

"I haven't contacted Starfleet Command," Jim—_Captain Kirk_—says. "We have a small diplomatic mission to take care of—five days, no more—and then I'm bringing you back to the Spacedock."

"Can't you drop me off somewhere else?"

He stands up. "I'm the Captain now. I can't have random people hanging around my ship. I should've contacted Starfleet the second I was informed of a stowaway. If they found out… Susan, everyone's waiting for me to screw up. I'm doing you a huge favor by returning you instead handing you over to the authorities."

--

We don't say anything after that. He leaves, and I lie down, and even though my bench is horribly uncomfortable and I only have an itchy standard-issue blanket, I manage to sleep.

--

Alarms wake me, accompanied by flashing red lights. The security officer guarding the Brig stands outside my cell, staring disapprovingly at me.

"Red alert," he says. I nod.

"Are we going to die?"

"Possibly."

"Great. Wake me up when we're dead." I roll over, pulling the blanket around me again, and close my eyes.

He bangs on the door.

"_What?_"

"Captain requests your presence on the Bridge," the guard informs me.

That gets my attention. I sit up, allowing the blanket to slide to the floor. "Really? What for?"

"He would not say. I am ordered to escort you up there."

I stand up, dusting off my pants. "Lead the way."

--

Something's attacking the ship. A particularly brutal hit nearly sends me flying, and I barely miss cracking my head open on a corner.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"I told you, she's on her way, stop _firing_!"

The Captain is shouting at the viewscreen, and the Bridge shakes again with another hit.

"Captain?"

He turns around and sighs. "Finally. Susan, do you mind telling your friends to stop trying to destroy my ship?"

"We already told you, we can't control them."

Wait. I know that voice. That's—

"Oh my god. Kate?"

My roommate grins and waves. "Susan! Hey, Jeff, look!"

Jeff smiles tightly. "I can see that. Hey, Susan."

"How'd you guys—"

"We could ask you the same," Kate says. "We were right behind you when you drove through… whatever it was. It dumped us out on this mercenary planet, and we barely managed to get transport off it before we were killed. We heard about you, though—ended up on Earth, lucky."

"Not so much with the lucky," I say, unable to stop grinning at my friends. "I'm… kind of under arrest for stowing away."

"Figures. We spend three years trying to find you, and when we do, we have to bail you out of jail," Jeff says with what I'm pretty sure is fake annoyance—although with him, it's hard to tell.

"Nothing changes, does it?"

"Nothing changes. Now, are you going to lower your shields so we can get you out of there, or are we going to have to come over ourselves?"

"Oh, no," the Captain says, shaking his head. "I'm not lowering shields while your people are firing on us."

Jeff shrugs. "That's okay," he says. "They'll just keep firing until they _are_ down, and then we'll beam Susan over."

"_What?_"

"We struck a deal," Kate puts in, sounding almost bored. "We get Susan, and the people who so generously provided us transport get whatever ship she's on. And then us three take this old junker."

There's a long stretch of silence. Then Jim turns off the viewscreen and turns to glare at me.

"It _had_ to be my ship, didn't it?" he says, and I can tell he's fighting to keep himself in check.

"Look, I didn't know," I protest, putting my hands up. "I had no idea—I didn't even know they came through—I'm really sorry, they're both complete idiots, I didn't think—"

Another hit shakes the ship, and I fall against a railing, barely catching myself.

"Captain, shields are down to 48%."

"Hail them again."

Jeff and Kate reappear. "Look, Captain, we're really sorry about this… if we could stop them, we would," Kate says quickly.

He shakes his head. "Never mind that. I have to save my ship. Susan, walk with me. You have the Bridge, Mr. Spock."


	6. Chapter 6

I do not like his plan.

The only comfort, I suppose, is that he doesn't really like it either—but it's really our only choice.

--

"The mercenaries are not going to let you and your friends keep their ship," he tells me. I stumble trying to keep up with his long pace. "They'll maroon you with the rest of us, and then you'll absolutely end up in a Federation prison colony."

"And you'll be court-martialed," I add.

"Most likely. Now, there is a way to get it back. I'm going to lower one section of our shielding for less than two seconds so we can beam you onto the other ship." He hands me a sleek silver phaser.

"What do I do with this?"

"Keep it on stun. Only use it if you have to."

I shake my head. This makes no sense. "Why can't one of your crew disable the ship?"

"I need my crew where they are," the captain says. "And maybe they'd be less likely to kill you, seeing as you're the whole reason they are attacking us."

I'm pretty sure that's an insult, but I don't say anything. Instead, I nod. Right. Get onto the ship, disable it, and then…

"Captain, what happens after I disable the ship?"

"Get to the Bridge," he says. "We'll be standing by to beam you and your friends out of there."

I don't like the implications of that.

"What'll happen then?" I ask. He doesn't answer; rather, he pushes me in the direction of the transporter.

"We'll figure it out later. Good luck, Susan. Energize."

--

It's a strange sensation, the transporter. Lights flash in front of my eyes, swirling, and then everything goes away and there's nothing—and then a split second later, the lights are back, and I'm somewhere else, and the world slowly comes back into focus but I still can't move.

And then I can.

I run. _Hard._


	7. Chapter 7

For a while, everything is flashing lights and screaming machinery as the mercenaries fire on me. I duck behind a bulkhead.

"Guys! Stop it!" I shout, not entirely sure if it'll do any good but willing to try in any case. "I'm Susan! The one Kate and Jeff were looking for? It's me."

The firing stops. I fall back against the bulkhead, relieved.

"Susan. Come with us. We will take you to the Bridge," one says. I don't quite trust him, and decide to keep my phaser with me.

He leads me out of the room—which seems to be a cargo bay—and down the bare halls of his ship. There's no wall paneling at all, just exposed wiring that occasionally sparks. A man down the hall aims a fire extinguisher at a smoking panel, frantically trying to put out the erupting flames. The floor isn't a floor at all, just grating laid haphazardly over more exposed circuits.

I feel like I'm walking around in a death trap.

We finally reach the Bridge. Kate turns around first, grinning stupidly.

"Susan! Your Captain let you come over?" I nod. "Great. Okay, guys, that big ship over there is yours."

One of the mercenaries nods at her, then pulls a gun and aims it at my neck.

"I don't think so. We're taking this ship and the Enterprise, and you three are going to be marooned on the next inhabitable planet," the merc says.

Kate's eyes widened. "But you _promised!_" she nearly whines. I roll my eyes.

--

It's times like these when I wish I had more competent friends. Or at least ones that aren't half-wasted most of the time. Speaking of which, I'm not entirely sure where Jeff went.

--

"Take them to the brig," the merc says, giving Kate a disgusted look as I'm tossed over to a burly man with a giant rifle. He latches onto my arm, then grabs Kate as she's tossed to him.

A split second of silence fills the Bridge, and then the shooting starts again.


	8. Chapter 8

The mercenary holding me lets go, and I drop to the floor under the crisscrossing beams. There's shouting, and I pick Jeff's voice out. And Kate's.

When the shooting finally stops, I straighten up, surveying the wreckage. Red lights flash. Jeff stands at the conn, eyes fixed on Kate's. She nods, and Jeff hails the _Enterprise._

"Captain!" he says cheerfully. "We've disabled the ship. If you could beam us back and get out of here, that would be awesome."

Jim Kirk nods and calls his transporter room to get a lock. A moment later, the familiar swirl of the transporter surrounds me, and Kate and Jeff, and we disappear off the bridge.

Security's waiting for us. Three burly Starfleet men in red uniforms. They're also pointing phasers at us.

"Captain wants you on the bridge," one says. Jeff steps forward, arrogance in his pose.

"Um—yeah. We'll go," I say, pushing ahead of him before he can say anything stupid. Jeff glares at me. I ignore it.

--

"Are we—" Jeff starts, the second the turbolift doors swish open. The mercenary ship is still clear on our monitor. "Captain, you might want to get out of here."

"Why?" the captain asks, giving Jeff an accusatory look.

"Because in thirty seconds, that ship's gonna blow," Kate puts in.

He nods. "Seems reasonable," he says, still calm. "Mr. Sulu, take us out." He doesn't take his eyes off us.

The Enterprise jumps to warp just as the other ship explodes, and we all breathe a sigh of relief.

--

Well, Kate, Jeff and I do. Everyone else looks annoyed. I just hope I can get my friends to take the blame, because, well, let's face it. It's pretty much their fault.

(Not to mention that time I nearly got busted for prostitution in a somewhat misguided attempt to keep Jeff from getting arrested. Getting out of that one wasn't so much luck as it was my last name.)

--

"Security, take Susan and her friends to the Brig," the captain says.

"Wait—what? Jim, I helped you! I saved your ship!" I hate the juvenile words pouring out of my mouth, but there's no way I'm going to be dumped on some prison colony because my friends are idiots.

"Get them off my bridge. I'll transfer them to Federation authorities myself. Right now, though, we're in the middle of something, so you three will just have to wait."

--

I really wish looks could kill.


End file.
